The Social Tensions of the 1920s Essay Example

the American way of life. This is termed 'One Hundred Per Cent Americanism'.

However, there emerged a mass hysteria against German-Americans and complaints of divided German-American loyalty. The War also gave America a general anti-foreign, disillusioned and isolationist mood. There was also a Red Scare in the period 1919-1920, where in was widely believed that a "web of conspirators was at work, comprised mainly of recent immigrants, thought to be anarchists or Bolsheviks.3 Secondly, Jones sees that a loss in American confidence in the process of assimilation was to blame for increasing desire for immigration restriction. It did not appear to the Old Stock that their processes of educating recent immigrants in the ways of America and citizenship, in the values of their democracy was achieving anything. Their disappointment resulted in a nationalist outburst, stressing the need for social unity, in a time of fear and sometimes hysterical hatred of foreigners.

 Read about early symptoms of a biological attack may appear the same as common illnessesThere was a conviction amongst Americans that the volume of immigrants had exceeded the Nation's capacity to absorb them. Thirdly, there had been a steadily increasing influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century , the so called 'New Immigrants". It was these New Immigrants that were the main focus of Nativists.

They saw a special danger in the Slavs, Italians and Jews who were associated "in the prevailing ethnic stereotypes with disorder, violent crime and avarice, respectively"4. Slavs and Italians were often used a strike breakers

in the late 1800s, which annoyed the white unions. Finally, Jones points to a rise in racial science, particularly the Eugenics movement, for increasing racial bias against immigrants in the 1920s. Race conscious New England intellectuals theorised that New Immigrants were inferior to Old Stock Americans. Their anxieties led to the formation of the Immigration Restriction League in 1894. It was this that spearheaded the restrictionist movement.

Scientists also began to regard racial differences as hereditary and immutable (unchangeable).There was also a rise in the Eugenics movement, which emphasised that biological significance of hereditary characteristics and warned against the consequences of breeding from an inferior stock. Their teachings were eagerly seized upon by nativists who were already concerned fro the survival of Anglo-Saxon stock. In 1916 Madison Grant published his 'Passing of the Great Race in America', which sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

In it, he warned that the "influx of new immigrants and the low birth rate of native white women threatened to obliterate the foundations of American civilization"5. Due to these social tensions and the triumph of the Old American Stock over the New Immigrants, legislation was introduced to restrict the numbers and origins of immigrants into the United States. In 1921 the Emergency Quota Act was enacted into law. This restricted immigration in any future year to three per cent of each nationality represented in the 1910 census, with a ceiling of 375 800 total immigrants.

These quota laws were designed to balance nation and race that would supposedly provide the United States with a "racial culture of its own".However, these laws were highly restrictive on immigration from New Immigrants and

Asia, which embodies the racial hostilities of the framers6. Following the 1921 legislation, which was designed to only be a temporary measure, racial scientist, Eugenicists, nativists and nationalists pressed congress for the legislation to become permanent. In 1924 they realised their success when the Johnson-Reed act became law on the 26th of May.

This legislation reduced the quota allowed to two per cent, and changed the base level to the 1890 census.This almost entirely excluded Asians and Eastern Europeans, as their immigration had been very low previous to 1890. America had effectively blocked the way of immigrant groups they saw as less desirable. Congressman William Vaile said "we prefer to base our quotas on groups whose value has been established through several generations". It is difficult to judge the social impact of the 1924 Johnson Reed Act as the Great Depression followed soon after.

However, the social tensions created between the immigrant community and the Old Stock of white, American protestants were rife in 1920s society.Linked to the tensions due to a rise in the immigrant community was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's. Prohibition and opposition to immigration were led in organisational form by the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had withered and died in the late nineteenth century, but became strong again in the 1920s and reached it's zenith in 1925. The Klan was reformed in 1915, in Georgia, by William J.

Simmons. By 1920 it was still a local affair, but when Hiram Wesley Evans took the leadership in 1920 he stirred the organisation into activity. The KKK first became strong in the South where they worked to

keep blacks "in their place".When the KKK did expand into the Eastern and Northern cities in the mid twenties, they appealed mainly to an anti-Semitic and anti-Southern and Eastern European sentiment.

The KKK appealed to whatever prejudice was popular in an area, but was consistent everywhere in that it was strongly anti-immigrant, prohibitionist and disapproving of immorality7. The KKK saw three main social evils in 1920s America: Class, a lack of Morality and the increasing power of alien races. Firstly, the Klan disliked the growth of big business and its role in the economy.They saw that the men of their country would have "no choice but to work for monopolies" and would become "automatons"8.

The Klan resented the Upper Classes, and the social transformation their power and the industrial revolution had brought. The Klan saw itself as a tool for restoring traditional values and morality to American society. Drunkenness, prostitution and gambling were all seen by the KKK as the scourge of society, despite the fact that many of their leaders partook in all three. The Klan thought that if they could clean up the morality of America, they could prove their political worth to her people.This provoked great social tensions, as people were highly fearful of the KKK and their activities. However, the Ku Klux Klan is most well known for its hatred of foreign races, and its fight against any challenges to 'White Supremacy'.

The Klan hated the idea of race relations, and used any way they could to break relations particularly between Whites and African Americans. The KKK used increased nativism and nationalistic feeling created by World War One to provoke legislation

for immigration restriction, and to keep segregation in place. The KKK's moral crusades also added to the dry wish for prohibition.Prohibition can also be seen as creating the greatest social tension in the 1920s. In the words of then President Calvin Coolidge, it was "the greatest social experiment of modern times"9.

Prohibition was a monumental social experiment, as it was a blatant attempt to regulate social behaviour. Behr sees prohibition as a 'rearguard action of a still dominant, overwhelmingly rural, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment, aware that it's privileges and right to rule were being increasingly threatened by the massive arrival of largely despised beer swilling, wine drinking immigrants.10 The prohibition movement logically developed from the temperance movement that followed the Civil War, in the late nineteenth century. Following the civil war, two major groups were established that were both campaigning for the common goal of an outright ban on alcohol in the United States. Firstly, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed in 1874. The women's war against liquor was the first women's mass movement in American history, and the WCTU provided organisation for female protest.

The WCTU was mainly comprised of middle class women married to professionals, and their aim was to better the working class economically, socially and morally, even though the working class didn't want them to. The Anti Saloon League (ASL) was a second organisation that sought prohibition. The ASL wasn't dependent on women or politics, but was instead fuelled by business minded individuals and the turn of the century industrial boom. Cramped working conditions and child labour heightened the fervour of progressive campaigners, and these campaigners included and increasing number

of 'drys'.

Prohibition can be linked to the large numbers of immigrants entering the United States at the turn of the century. America had a very liberal immigration policy at this point, especially to Europeans, and many took advantage of this. However, this massive transformation in the ethnic mix of the USA was extremely disturbing to some Americans. They related the increased immigrant population to the disadvantages brought by great social and economic change, such as poverty, prostitution and lawlessness. Prohibitionists argued that it was the immigrants and their love of alcohol that was to blame.The Volstead Act for the prohibition of alcohol was finally introduced to congress on the 27th of May, 1919 and was passes following three months of debate.

It was vetoed by President Wilson on constitutional on ethical grounds, but his veto was overturned by congress the same day. On the 17th of January, 1920 at midnight America officially went dry. But what actually was the social and economic impact of the Prohibition of alcohol? The Volstead Act determined 'no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act'.In Behr's opinion, the act was hopelessly inadequate.

It underestimated the willingness of law breakers to risk conviction, the degree of human ingenuity displayed to get round it, and the ease in which it's enforcers could be subverted. Its failure resulted from a nai?? ve belief in the effectiveness of law. The dry's were convinced that Americans, as law abiding citizens, would obey the provisions of the Volstead Act even if they deeply resented it. It was naive of drys to believe

that a law would stop the consumption of alcohol.

Instead prohibition sent drinking underground.Because alcohol was banned, it made it all the more irresistible to drink, and finding ways to dodge prohibition enforcers became a national pastime. Prohibitionists didn't achieve their goals of creating a better social environment through temperance. The ban on alcohol only served to add to the social tensions of the 1920s. Firstly, prohibition changed the drinking habits of Americans. Previous to the ban, alcohol was only consumed in small amounts, usually with food, and mostly outside of the home.

During the prohibition era, however, the consumption of alcohol in the home grew as bars closed.Although alcohol consumption in the home grew, many people were also visiting illegal bars, called 'speakeasies'. The number of these proliferated as they were smaller and better hidden than saloons. Women were welcomed in speakeasies unlike in saloons, and it became more acceptable for women to drink increasing amounts. These illegal bars were completely unregulated as they were already outside the law. This meant that many other illegal activities sometimes took place in them, for example prostitution and gambling.

Secondly, alcohol manufactured illegally during prohibition was often very unsafe. Alcoholic production could no longer be regulated and monitored, which resulted in brewers often using harmful ingredients to increase the volume of alcohol they produced, as drink prices rose. In his Policy Analysis of Prohibition11, Mark Thornton points to Richard Cowan's Iron Law of Prohibition for the reasoning behind the increase in potency of alcohol. Cowan states that "the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the prohibited substance becomes.This reduces any benefits ascribed to a decrease in

consumption"12.

Thornton goes on to state that the proposed benefits of prohibition depended on a reduction of the amount of alcohol consumed. There was an initial decrease in the amount of alcohol consumed, but this decrease was not significant. The consumption of alcohol began to increase again in 1922. Also, most estimates place the potency of prohibition era products at 150 per cent of the potency if products produced either before or after prohibition.According to Coffey " the death rate from poisoned liquor was appallingly high throughout the country.

In 1925 the national toll was 4154 as compared to 1064 in 1920"13. There were many other social effects of the prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition reversed a declining crime trend. Homicides increased by 78% over the pre-prohibition period14, and the general number of crimes increased 24% 1920-21.

Also, prohibition filled prisons to capacity, creating a huge tax burden instead of reducing it. Prohibition also caused corruption.Politicians and police took bribes from bootleggers, and Prohibition Bureau agents were easily corrupted. Temperance also financially, morally and emotionally harmed people. People who, in 1919 were legal brewers in 1920 had their businesses and jobs taken a way from them without any compensation.

Many went into illegal production as it was one thing they knew how to do. It can therefore be seen that the social tensions of the 1920's were mainly between the 'Old Stock' of Rural America and the 'New Immigrants' of the Big City.The debate over immigration restriction created great tensions as the Old Stock fought to reaffirm that white Protestants were the leaders of America and at the top of society. The Ku Klux Klan provided

organisation to the fight against immorality, immigration and prohibition, to reassert white supremacy by using their hidden influence and blatant intimidation and violence.

And finally the prohibition movement. The Prohibition Movement changed the drinking habits of America, undermined the police force and made a mockery of moral crusaders. It affected the entire social strata of America, changing the way society was forever.